PBS Frontline (2/23/2016): “The opioid epidemic has been called the worst drug crisis in American history…with overdoses from heroin and other opioids now killing more than 27,000 people a year…” (Note: prescription opioids are now a very significant gateway-drug leading addicts into heroin.)

CBS News (8/1/2017): “Nearly 92 million U.S. adults, or about 38 percent of the population, took a legitimately prescribed opioid like OxyContin or Percocet in 2015, according to results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.”

On the condition of anonymity, an insider with intimate knowledge of the opioid crime network spoke with me. He is not a participant or a criminal. He has spent years exposing the network.

My initial question to him was prompted by the current Washington Post series on collusion between members of Congress and the drug industry. The collusion has produced a new law that makes it much harder for the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to shut down major opioid traffickers. (That law is the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016, signed by President Obama on 4/9/16.)

My question was: how could a corrupt little pharmacy or medical clinic in a small town, in the middle of nowhere, sell, as reported, a MILLION opioid pills a year?

Here is the answer my source confirmed: a criminal doctor or doctors are writing 75-100 opioid prescriptions a day like clockwork; “patients” are flooding in from all over the country (many of them flying in once a month); they are sold the opioid prescriptions, and either fill them right there in the clinic, or take them to a friendly pharmacy.

These patients are actually dealers. They return home and sell the pills to addicts.

Where do the small clinics and pharmacies obtain the huge number of opioid pills? From distributors. These are legitimate companies. They may distribute all sorts of medicines. It’s their business. They know they are committing egregious crimes.

Where do these big distributors obtain their opioid pills? From pharmaceutical companies who manufacture them.

The manufacturers and the distributors have an ongoing relationship. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know the bulk of the product is going into “street sales.”